It was a stinking hot day in Rotorua in 1986 when Kent Briggs and his brother headed off to the circus, the events that day started an obsession that have resulted in a new TVNZ docuseries, Who Killed Lucy the Poodle.
The story involves a missing poodle, three rampaging lions being chased by police with .22 rifles and a 30-year-old mystery.
Who Killed Lucy The Poodle Photo: TVNZ
“Well, it was a stinking hot day in the school holidays, it was the day after the Challenger Shuttle it exploded, and my brother and I headed off to the circus.
“We’d heard on the radio that morning that one of the performing poodles was missing, presumed stolen.”
The first act he and his brother saw were the lions, and they were acting oddly, he says
“They were back-chatting the tamer quite a bit. They were quite aggressive.
“In the last part of the act they ran around the cage in a circle they sort of started fighting, they hit the door, and the door just popped open.”
It was an enduring memory Briggs tells Jesse Mulligan.
“My most exciting memory of the day was the alpha lion leaping through the side of the tent, sort of leaping up at it and pushing a section down. And people who'd been looking for free on the ground scattering because it came down right on top of them.”
The reason for the lions’ aggressive behaviour soon became clear.
“Someone had put the poodle in the cage, the lions had got it, they were upset by the kill and then they went basically straight into the performance and so this poodle murder was, you know, the beginning of a cascade of events that led to the lions escaping.”
The lions were at large for a couple of hours, he says.
“There were about 20 police involved running around chasing some lines. There’s nothing and the police handbook for it. And you know, they're they only had rifles that were 22s - better suited for shooting rabbits. “
Three decades later he decided to revisit the strange events of that day.
“I’ve made a true crime documentary series about a murdered poodle.”
